A Knight's Purpose (Book 1) ✔️

Chapter 16 - Coerced Truce

Two days later I'm rethinking my move to save the kid.

After dropping off the van, I wrangled her into my own small, black sedan and laid her out on the back seat seeing as she'd pretended to dose off. Not wanting to tempt her, I didn't even bother to buckle her in, simply putting her in and shutting the door as quickly as possible. Thank the heavens for the invention of child lock.

She isn't aware enough to make a dash for the front seat so I jog to my door before it can cross her mind. A few hours drive west is all I managed, dragging from the adrenaline rush of running for my life earlier that day. The little hellion pretended to sleep the entire time until I pull up to the motel, probably just as worn out. I grabbed my wallet from where it rested on the center console and hopped out.

As soon as I took a step away she dove for the door. With a flick of my wrist I forced all the locks shut and tethered them that way with a string of magic. I'd given up. We were in some random town off a highway at a sketchy motel, it wasn't like there would be anyone around to realize what I had just done. And even if they did, they wouldn't know I was a shifter so it wouldn't matter. The kid would be so pissed she wouldn't have caught it.

I just needed to get her into a hotel room, feed both of us, and pass out. Pressure had been building behind my eyes since I got behind the wheel and I just wanted to sleep so it would go away. And the kid hadn't been helping. Sure, that evening hadn't been bad but I doubted she'd continue the sleeping act a second day and there was at least one more night on the road before we reached Tershaw.

Muttering to myself, I quickly entered the dingy office and banged on the counter with a fist. Everything was orange. The wallpaper, the counter, and even the carpet, though the carpet I doubted started out that color as it leaned more towards dirty brown than true orange. The desk guy in a, you guessed it, orange uniform jerked up from where he'd clearly been napping in a chair.  

"What you want?" Is what he said, I'm mostly sure. At least that's what I interpreted his slurred words as.

Best to keep things short and sweet with this one. "Room."

A grunt in reply followed by a piece of paper being slung onto the counter appeared to be his acknowledgment. "Twenty bucks."

I slapped a twenty on the counter from my wallet and left the paper blank. He shrugged and handed me an key. Not a card key but an actual metal key. "Room 12."

He finally seemed to be waking up and eyed me, pausing briefly on my sooty shirt but clearly not caring enough to ask. I made my escape, key in hand, and strode back to the car. I unlocked the back door of the car both magically and physically and knelt in front of it. Taking a deep breath I slowly opened it to stare at a pissed kid glaring at me from the other side of the car.

"Listen, you're tired, I'm tired, we both almost died today and I really just want to take you to some people who are going to take care of you. So, can we agree to just get to the room and go to sleep and pick up with the glaring and escape attempts tomorrow morning when I'm more rested?" Exhaustion was heavy in my voice and she looked uncertain.

Apparently I was wrong about her apprehension though because she launched herself at me. Grabbing her hands I managed to wrangle her and keep her in the seat.

"Enough." This time I put weight behind my words not just anger. She froze. "Tell me your name," Unlike my previous question, I didn't use power to force an answer.

"Eavan," A cautious voice answered.

"I'm not forcing you to speak so everything you say is of your own will. I don't like manipulating people, especially kids, but if it means I get to sleep tonight I will. So, do we agree to a truce until tomorrow morning?" I kept my voice even, trying not to spook her.